Chalicotherium was a hoofless relative of horses, rhinoceroses and tapirs: a heavy animal with a horse-like head, very long arms ending in large claws, and short hind legs, so that its back sloped down steeply to its hips. Its best-known species, Chalicotherium goldfussi, lived in the forests of Europe about 10 million years ago, in the Late Miocene. At first sight it looks like a cross between a horse and a gorilla, and working out that its parts belonged together took most of the 19th century.
On its knuckles
Bony growths on the backs of its finger bones supported pads, and they are the main evidence that Chalicotherium walked on its knuckles. Its front claws could not be retracted, unlike those on its hind feet, so it folded them back towards the wrist as it walked, as anteaters do today. That spared the claws from wear but put most of its weight on the hind legs, and it was probably not a fast runner. Each foot had three digits, ending in claws deeply cloven at the tip.
Those hands were under strain. In 2025 Kampouridis and colleagues studied a fused pair of finger bones from Höwenegg in Germany. They found that chalicotheriines, the subfamily to which Chalicotherium belongs, restricted movement in some finger joints with a notched joint, and suggested that the stress of using such large claws may explain it, although they could not rule out disease in that one individual.
Claws for branches, not roots
Some early palaeontologists thought the claws dug up roots and tubers. Bones and teeth both argue against this. The forearm bones were fused, leaving little room for the twisting that digging needs, and the teeth were made for soft food. As adults these animals shed their incisors and upper canines, cropped with muscular lips and gum pads, and chewed on square, low-crowned molars. Tooth wear in Chalicotherium goldfussi points to leaves, twigs and bark, and in its relative Anisodon also to fruit and seeds.
The long arms and mobile shoulders let it reach up and hook branches towards its mouth, and its pelvis and hind legs allowed it to stand upright. Thickened patches on the hip bones show that it sat on its haunches for long periods, probably while feeding, as gelada monkeys do. The claws may also have served as weapons. Similar builds evolved separately in ground sloths, gorillas and giant pandas.
Claws without an owner
The first chalicothere claw bones, from near Eppelsheim in Germany, were taken by Cuvier in 1822 for those of a giant pangolin. In 1833 Kaup named Chalicotherium from teeth found in the same place, but gave the claws to Deinotherium, whose fossils come from the same sands. Lartet named limb bones from Sansan in France Macrotherium in 1837, again thinking of a giant pangolin, and in 1849 Blainville gave skull remains from that site to an unrelated hoofed mammal. Only in 1890 did Filhol describe a complete skeleton from Sansan that showed the parts belonged to one animal.
Fossils remain scarce. Complete skeletons are known only for Moropus in North America and Anisodon in Europe, so the picture of Chalicotherium is partly filled in from these relatives. A rock fissure at Devínska Nová Ves in Bratislava has yielded more than 1 500 bones of at least 60 individuals of Anisodon grande, probably animals that fell in one at a time.
How big, and how old
Size is the weakest part of the record. About 1 500 kg and 2.6 m at the shoulder are the figures usually quoted for Chalicotherium goldfussi, and German summaries add 1.8 m for females, but none of them cites a study that measured these animals. For scale, Moropus stood up to about 2.4 m, and one specimen has been estimated at 1 179 kg.
Its age is pinned down better by site than by genus. Zapfe described Chalicotherium goldfussi from Höwenegg, in beds dated to 10.3 million years. The Eppelsheim sands are usually put at about 9.5 million years, although a 2012 study by Böhme and colleagues argued that they mix fossils covering at least six million years. These two sites date finds, not the whole life of the species, which is known from the late Middle to the early Late Miocene of Europe. The genus lasted much longer, by figures that differ between summaries. The family as a whole lasted from about 34 to 1 million years ago, and its last members survived in Asia and Africa into the Early Pleistocene.
